293 Pa. Super. 447 - Commonwealth v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “To begin with, an accused does not have a constitutional right to a line-up and the suggestiveness of a courtroom identification is only one factor to be considered in determining the reliability of the identification evidence. Moreover, this jurisdiction has “declined to accept a per se rule that a pre-trial, pre-hearing line up is mandatory in all cases.” A fortiori, counsel’s failure to request a lineup or failure to object to identification testimony is not per se ineffective assistance. Because a review of the totality of the circumstances revealed that the identification testimony was reliable, and further revealed that even if the preliminary hearing was suggestive, the in-court identification had an independent basis, a lineup or objection would have been fruitless. (Citations omitted).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 333 Pa. Super. 366 - Commonwealth v. Kenon

2. “the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of his prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated at the confrontation, and the time between the crime and the confrontation. Against these factors is to be weighed the corrupting effect of the suggestive identification itself.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 311 Pa. Super. 135 - Commonwealth v. Spiegel